A Murder Among Friends. Ramona Richards

night. Aaron had been angry. In fact, he had been angry a lot lately—at her, at his wife, at—

      No, she told herself again. Maggie knew what she had done was wrong, but it was for the right reasons. I know what they would think. Besides, what’s done is done. Still, her conscience nagged at her. Tell him. Maggie took a ragged breath. Her mother used to say that your conscience was God’s finger on your back, poking you in the right direction. And God never gets tired.

      Her mother. Aaron. Lil—Tears clouded her eyes again, the grief unstoppable this time.

      Maggie had found Aaron when she had taken out the trash for the night. Why didn’t I hear anything? I must have been in the kitchen cleaning up. Maggie stopped, unable to see for the tears, unable to walk from the weakness in her legs. All that blood! She sank down next to a tree and drew her knees tight against her chest, then leaned her head on them and sobbed. The grief she had been trying to restrain for the past twenty-four hours poured out of her in lung-wrenching gulps that seemed endless. Oh, dear God, help me! The sobs ceased only when her nose became so clogged that she started to choke and cough. She grabbed the bottom of her skirt and started to wipe her face with it.

      “Here, use this.”

      Maggie gasped and snapped backward, hitting her head against the tree. Her screech echoed through the woods as she jerked and stared up through tears at Fletcher, who was calmly holding out a handkerchief to her. He tipped his head sideways in apology. “I didn’t mean to scare you.”

      Maggie stared at him, still shaky, and rubbed the back of her head. “How did you find me?” she asked, her voice hoarse.

      He waved absently behind him. “I’ve known moose who left less evidence of their passage.” He shook the handkerchief at her again. “Go ahead. It’s old, but it’s clean,” he said.

      She hesitated a moment, then snagged the soft worn cloth, wiped her face and eyes and blew her nose. She peered briefly at the smears of makeup on it. “Great. Now I looked like a sleep-deprived raccoon.” She crushed it into a ball, then peered back up at the man she’d only known as a New York City cop. “What do you know about moose? You’re a city boy,” she said.

      He nodded. “For fifteen years. But I grew up in Verm—” He stopped and cleared his throat. “I need to ask you some questions.”

      “Read the police report. I told them all I know.”

      He sat down in the leaves next to her and she frowned, scooting away. “I did,” he replied.

      Maggie twisted the handkerchief viciously. “I really don’t want to go over this again, okay?” Her voice was harsher than she intended, but she didn’t apologize.

      Fletcher was silent. His eyes seemed focused on something in the distance. After a few moments, he said softly, “He was my friend, too.”

      Over her head, Maggie could hear a squirrel chewing on a nut. A breeze brushed the branches around them lightly, and the remaining leaves whispered to her. Maggie turned her head slightly to look at Fletcher. He seemed totally comfortable sitting here next to a tree, even in his business suit. He sat with his long legs crossed, guaranteeing the most stains per square inch on his pants, but he didn’t seem to care. Maggie suddenly remembered a description that Aaron had written about Judson MacLean.

      Judson was a man who always surprised people. He caught them off guard. With his size, with his intelligence, with his wit. And with his ability to ferret out information from the least likely of suspects.

      Aaron had been right about that part. Fletcher was a large man, tall with a lean figure that belied a personal strength. Sitting here, even without speaking, Fletcher had taken charge of the scene. And what surprised Maggie was both the ease with which he did that as he sat with a woman who was virtually a stranger—and the odd twinge that ran deep in her gut. Don’t start liking him, girlfriend, she cautioned herself. He’s not here because he wants your company.

      “Is that why you’re doing this?” she asked. “Because he was your friend?”

      Fletcher looked directly at her, locking her in his gaze. “Partially. Are you grieving only because he was your friend?”

      Maggie’s eyes widened, and she felt her anger building again. “Am I a suspect?”

      “So you don’t really think it was an accident.”

      Anger flashed through her, a raw combination of grief and the denial she so desperately wanted to hang on to. She stood up, tossing the handkerchief into the woods. “Aaron fell! And you will not try and convict me in my own home!” Turning on her heels, she started back toward the lodge.

      He called lightly after her. “Yes, Maggie, I will.” She stopped but did not turn. “If you’re guilty.”

      Fletcher watched her stomp away, unaffected by her anger. She was fighting against the truth too hard, as if she knew someone had killed Aaron, yet she didn’t want to believe it. He released a deep breath. It wasn’t an uncommon reaction to the murder of someone you love, but there were more facts that bothered him than just her behavior. According to the police report, she’d found Aaron, but she had not called the police. The groundskeeper, Tim, had called them after he’d found Maggie next to the body. Fletcher wanted to know why Tyler Madison, the local police chief, had blithely overlooked that. The amount of blood indicated Aaron had died on the steps, but the body had been moved, rearranged to make it look like a fall. Taking a deep breath, he stood up and pulled a small brown paper bag from his coat pocket. He stepped over a few broken branches and lifted his handkerchief by one corner, bagging it carefully. DNA, he thought casually, can be handy to have around.

      As he turned to go back to the lodge, he could still hear Maggie crashing in the leaves. “Maggie Weston, you are most definitely a suspect,” he muttered, as he followed her wide swath through the trees. “Right now, everyone who was here last night is.”

      Maggie slammed into her office at the south end of the lodge. She paced, her anger seething but with no outlet. How dare he! How dare he accuse me of killing Aaron? He has no right here! None! Tyler has ruled it an accident, and Aaron is gone. Why couldn’t Korie just have accepted that? She didn’t love him—Maggie stopped abruptly, her mind caught on a thought.

      Love.

      When she’d first met Fletcher five years ago, she and Aaron had been in the blush of love. They hadn’t seen each other since. Does Fletcher think I killed Aaron because he didn’t love me anymore? Maggie sank down in her office chair, her manager’s brain kicking into gear. It was a motive. And not a bad one. And it might keep Fletcher off guard long enough—

      That’s illegal, girlfriend. It’s called obstruction of justice. And immoral. And against your beliefs. Maggie sighed at the nagging inner voice. God’s finger. But it’s not evidence, she insisted to herself. Not really. “And aren’t some risks worth it?” she asked aloud.

      A knock on her door brought her attention back around, and she called out for her visitor to enter. Fletcher opened the door and was followed into the office by Korie. They sat in the chairs on the front side of the desk.

      “I want Fletcher to stay here, in one of the cabins,” Korie announced, expertly swinging her blond hair back over her shoulder. “Surely you have one that’s empty. It doesn’t look right for him to keep staying with me, and I want him to get to the bottom of this. And I want you to call Chief Madison and tell him you’re behind it as well. He cooperated with Fletcher about the reports, but he’s acting like you’re queen of the estate and he’s deferring to you.”

      Silence.

      Maggie looked from one to the other, and she knew they were waiting for her to protest. After a moment, she opened her center desk drawer and pulled out a key with a numbered key chain on it. She tossed it lightly at Fletcher, who caught it with no effort. “Number four,” she said, handing him a map and a brochure. “You might have to clean it. The previous occupant left this weekend after a fight with Aaron, and I haven’t had a chance to get the cleaning